Mark Alan Leslie

Why I Started Writing:

For me, books were a natural progression from reporting and feature writing for national magazines for which I won seven national awards — my features appearing in such places as Sports Illustrated, Links, Urban Landscapes and Golf Course News.

I enjoy words. Alliteration, analogy, allegory — any way to string them together is simply fun for me. So why not do what you find as fun? Fishermen fish. Hunters hunt. NASCAR drivers race. Me, I sit, think, try to hear God, and write.

The “natural progression” I speak of is my career. I had been a reporter and newspaper and magazine editor through the first 30 years after earning a journalism  degree at the University of Maine-Orono. When I went on my own to freelance and do public relations, I had time to write novels that I had dreamed of for years.

My first manuscripts were an outgrowth of my journalistic training: A self-help book, Fired? Get Fired Up!; a devotional, Walks with God; and two golf e-books filled with quotes from my interviews with golf icons like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Kathy Whitworth, Patti Berg, Gary Player, Ben Crenshaw, and Pete and Alice Dye.

Then came Midnight Rider for the Morning Star for which I used my reporter’s training in writing a “biographical novel” about the life and times of Francis Asbury, America’s first circuit-riding preacher whose life was filled with life-threatening dangers. It involved a lot of research, mostly buoyed by Asbury’s own journals.

With these “reportorial” books done, it was then a short step up to historical novels based on fact—True North: Tice’s Story about the Underground Railroad and The Crossing about the tragic upheaval caused by the Ku Klux Klan “invading” Maine in the 1920s.

Now I’ve completed so much more. Three action-adventure books (with a touch of romance) featuring Yale University archaeologist Kat Cardosa and black-ops veteran Max Braxton are Chasing the Music, a danger-filled, globe-trotting search for the music of David’s Psalms; The Three Sixes, which points out the perils of Islamic terrorist cells in the United States; and Operation Jeremiah’s Jar, about the search for the prophet Jeremiah’s jar, proving the Jews’ historic ownership of land Iin Israel.

Another contemporary action-adventure, The Last Aliyah, scares me with so many anti-semetic, anti-Zionist governments around the globe. The scenario: the United Nations bans Jewish emigration to Israel and the US Senate acquiesces under powerful arm-bending from the White House. The Last Aliyah tackles the question, What will happen to America if it “curses” the apple of God’s eye?

Not to let my heart take a break, I wrote Torn Asunder, an end-times thriller where a One World Government, Church Universal and an amalgam of society’s most ardent social-justice activists can be neutralized by Truth Publishing and Broadcasting, an empire driven by a biblical worldview.

Then I jumped back into history with two powerful true stories of American Revolution heroes. A Cause Most Splendid: The Battle for the Bible, which was named Best Novel of the Year by the American Family Association in 2022, proves that religious freedom isn’t always free, and some men and women must risk all to preserve this freedom. In this case publisher Robert Aitken defies King George and the threat of prison or a hangman’s noose if caught publishing the Bible for American troops. His response: “My King is the King of kings. To Him only will I answer.”

Baker, Rebel, Spy, published in 2025, is the story of Christopher Ludwick. A former Hessian soldier who had become a prominent Philadelphian, Ludwick obtained permission from the Continental Congress to go behind enemy lines to persuade Hessian soldiers to desert the British army. After the war, Thomas Jefferson credited the plan with convincing several thousand Hessians to desert. Escaping capture, Ludwick was named Baker General of the Amry and spent his fortune, paying his assistants and the ovens needed to feed American troops.

All these novels, and especially the historical manuscripts, involve immense research, and it helps that my wife, Loy, is a research junkie. For instance, Baker, Rebel, Spy would not have been possible if she had not somehow unearthed a thirty-six-page memorial written by rounding father Dr. Benjamin Rush about his good friend Christopher Ludwick.

 

Authors Who Have Influenced Me:

George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, Charles Dickens, Brock and Bodie Thoene, Joel Rosenberg, Francine Rivers.

 

Books I Have Written:

Fired? Get Fired Up! (2002, a self-help e-book available for free on my web site: www.markalanleslie.com)

Walks with God (2004, a devotional e-book available for free on my web site: www.markalanleslie.com)

Putting a Little Spin on It: The Design’s the Thing! (2013, an e-book available through amazon.com)

Putting a Little Spin on It: The Grooming’s the Thing! (2013, an e-book available through amazon.com)

Midnight Rider for the Morning Star: The Life and Times of Francis Asbury (2008, softcover available through amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com)

True North: Tice’s Story (2015, softcover available through amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com)

Chasing the Music (2016)

The Crossing (2017)

The Last Aliyah (2018)

The Three Sixes (2017)

Operation Jeremiah’s Jar (2018)

Torn Asunder (2020)

A Cause Most Splendid: The Battle for the Bible (2022)

Baker, Rebel, Spy (2025)

 

What I'm Working On Now:

Waiting in the wings is my most recent manuscript, Awake, Sleeper! An Allegory of the Modern Church. Compromise has become the dogma, not only of today’s society but of the Christian church, playing into the devil’s hands.   What was once reprobate becomes accepted, what is accepted becomes celebrated, what is celebrated becomes normalized.

Instead of setting a godly standard, the church has succumbed to wanting to please those who are relentless in their demands for our approval.

This allegory follows famed Christian singer Christiana slipping into the world of darkness where only the Savior can rescue. This frames the question: Is the church savable?